Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Lessons in tolerance

I'm away from my desk for the next few days or so, presenting a seminar paper at my university and trying to get in some quick research while in London.

Till next week, however, you might want to spend some time reading the few thousand words or so that I put into very orderly rows with regard to the Sign and Sight multiculturalism debate. Of course, you might not. You might have far better things to do.

But if so, it's best to start here, move on to here and, finally, end up here. (Go ahead. Put another pot of coffee on, and make yourself comfortable. It'll take a while.)

One thing I discussed was the vexed topic of 'tolerance', so after reading what I had to say (or -- if you're lazy -- instead of reading what I had to say), do go visit Think Humanist and check out the first two of their 'thought for the day' podcasts. (Pdf transcripts of the comments from A.C. Grayling and from Stewart Lee are also available. Thanks to Matt M for the tip.)

Both of them make very worthwhile listening or reading.

And they're a lot more succinct than I am.

Finally, you may wish to consider a rather different viewpoint on tolerance, this time from the seven-year-old narrator in John D. Fitzgerald's great children's book The Great Brain:

'Adenville had a population of twenty-five hundred people, of which about two thousand were Mormons and the rest Catholics and Protestants. Mormons and non-Mormons had learned to live together with some degree of tolerance and understanding by that time. But tolerance hadn't come easy for my oldest brother, Sweyn, my brother Tom, and myself. Most of our playmates were Mormon kids, but we taught them tolerance. It was just a question of us all learning how to fight good enough for Sweyn to whip every Mormon kid his age, Tom to whip every Mormon kid his age, and for me to whip every Mormon kid my age in town. After all, there is nothing as tolerant and understanding as a kid you can whip.' (pp. 1-2)

True. Very true. (Thanks to Anja for the tip!)

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